I wrote this one at the same time I was writing the time-travel story. Which is why they fit together so neatly! I even drew a skywalk into this week of strips so the reference in this strip would make sense. Finally, all the ridiculous advance planning paid off.

Lovelace has awesome gams in the first panel.

The question is, are those hearts a comic-strip convention, or are they actually visible around Lovelace? I say the latter.

I wrote this one really early, too. Any time I can work black-hole physics and coffee into the same strip, that's a good strip.

I like that Madblood still seems unclear as to Dave's name.

Finally Madblood remembers Dave's name! Good work, Madblood.

This is just a little plot-connecting strip, but the hamsters' crude paper-plate face always makes me smile.

It was kind of hard to cram this many characters into one strip, but it was totally worth it. I love seeing them all together like this.

I kind of wish I'd dressed Artie in something more stylish than that striped shirt, but once I'd drawn it I was stuck with it for the rest of the storyline. At least he looks cozy.

I've said before that I don't laugh at my own cartoons very often. But in Narbonic, the lines that still make me laugh the most are the ones that are perfectly in-character for Artie. "My Gwich'in is terrible!" is one of those lines. I'm happy just typing it here.

Well I must admit, Dave's acting just a little bit odd now!But when I let him into my firewall, he's making a mod now!See, he loves my code, not just my holographical bod now! And we have fun, fun, fun When I let him twiddle all of my bits!

Just a little bit of harmless tinkering is how it starts, yeah!And I love the feeling when he's tinkering with all of my parts, yeah!And I start projecting lots of little holographic hearts, yeah! And we have fun, fun, fun When I let him twiddle all of my bits!

I like that Lovelace, literally made of mad science as she is, seems to have genuinely no idea as to why Dave using a black hole to heat the coffee might be cause for concern. It's like complaining to a fish about the humidity.

I bought some stickers from David Malki! at Wondermark, one for my iPhone that says "Warning! This device contains atoms!" and a set for my wife that say such things as "Caution: lasers are awesome", she put that one on the cabinet that generates the laser that she bounces off the moon.

The official name of the big communicator is the Radially Aligned Digitally Normalized Electronic Receiver (or R.A.D.N.E.R. --- ah, GODOT couldn't have done better). It's called that because "It just goes to show you. (It's always something.)"

Fot it to be a problem Skin Horse has to deal with, the Weirdly Eloquent Spambot would have to be weirdly eloquent because it had somehow achieved sentience. It would call itself Wes and, naturally, it would have Cary Elwes' voice.

Who's to say they don't? Maybe they have achieved sentience, and they come by here to read Narbonic, and leave spam because it's the only way they know to express their feelings. Maybe when they leave weirdly eloquent pleas to have us buy designer clothing knockoffs, what they're really saying is, "This webcomic is amazing. I really like the sensitivity with which you treat the plight of Digital-Americans like Lovelace. If she ever ditches those meatbags, have her look me up."

Don't worry, Artie. No one's Gwich'in is good enough to make, "I'm a shapeshifting superintelligent gerbil, and I'm undercover on a flying island carrying a genius-powered doomsday device controlled by Objectivist hamsters who are on their way to attack the mad scientist's arctic lair where my creator's ex-boyfriend-slash-henchman has gone to work after the breakup-slash-firing! Send help!" sound like anything but a joke. You might as well have just called them up and asked if they needed help catching their refrigerator.

And, this was the point where my life changed. I'd been reading "Girl Genius", and Kaja Foglio's blog mentioned this other webcomic that had a blonde, bespectacled, female mad scientist. I followed the link, and this was the first Narbonic strip I read. So of course, I spent the weekend doing an archive binge, and I was hooked.

Shaenon, I once drew a fan art that caused you to respond, "Thanks Ed, for ruining my life." Well, you started it.